


down, down, down

by Unlikelyoptimist



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, Depression, PTSD, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 00:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3708399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unlikelyoptimist/pseuds/Unlikelyoptimist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How long did it take Steve Rogers to drown? </p><p>70 years, and counting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	down, down, down

On May 8th, 1945, Steve Rogers drowned.

He wakes up, and he keeps moving, but he never leaves the Arctic behind. 

(He opened his eyes long enough to see sunlight filtering down, through the broken glass and through the water to dance over his hands, to glance off his shield. He can’t recall whether he sank away from the sun, or whether the darkness of water ate away it until there was nothing left.)

It isn’t turning off the lights that bothers him at first. It’s the sunset. The blue in the sky dulls, blackness crawls inexorably over the horizon, and his teeth grind together until there’s a twinge of pain, a slight creak in his jaw. He jerks the blinds shut. He reaches to turn off the light switch that night, and the darkness hits him all at once, slamming into him from all sides until he flicks it back on.

He sleeps with the lights on, and changes the bulbs to a soft yellow when the white burns his eyes like antiseptic. The light switches collect dust, and he only comes back to a dark apartment when the bulbs burn out.

(The water wrapped around him like a pillow, cushioning the noise until there’s only silence. It didn’t matter. In the Arctic, there was nothing to hear, and the last voice that might have talked to him is gone with the wiring of the radio.)

Silence pushes against his eardrums until they buzz, the passing of cars and the murmur of conversation in the halls not enough to stem it. The way his breathing picks up in silence doesn’t register until he’s gasping, the sound of his hitched breath dragging unpleasantly against an empty backdrop.

He buys a sound system, and turns on the TV. Music plays meaninglessly in the background, merging seamlessly into the evening news or the buzz of the radio. He dozes off to the sound of fast moving piano and strings. The sound of thrashing in sheets at 2 am overlaps with the drone of a pleasant female voice reading an audiobook. He wakes up to the thumping of drums and bass, still softer than his heartbeat.

(More than how it looked or how it sounded, he remembers how it felt. The temperature was like a shot through an iced needle, an insidious poison eating away at his motor skills until his limbs fell to his sides. It came for his brain last, smothering his consciousness into a tired corner, and then out.)

It’s harder to notice the cold, because he doesn’t panic. There are no bursts of adrenaline spiking painfully through his veins to warn him of danger, nothing like the click of a trigger on a gun. He just slows down until one day, he blinks and sees icy water running over his hands. The tips of his fingers are shriveled, and he can’t feel them any more.

He holds his mug of coffee tighter, but it’s not enough. He falls asleep under heaps of blankets only once the sweat begins to bead on his forehead. Hot water pounds out of the shower head onto his shoulders until they’re red, raw. His thermostat is never below 60. His eyes scan the flat white sky of a day in the negative temperatures, and they’re tired before he steps out the door.

Fists pound into the leather of a bag (Gotta wrap your hands now Steve, gonna rip the skin right of your knuckles with those new muscles). The skin split ten minutes ago, and his fists are sliding off the sweat and the blood on the bag (Steve, you really must take better care of yourself. Must I start writing you an agenda, on top of managing your mission reports?) His breath is coming faster and faster, and it’s not drowning if he takes another one, and another, faster or they’ll stop, another one, another-

On May 8th, 1945, Steve Rogers started drowning, and he never stopped.


End file.
